Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (updated with two new chapters)

by Brant Hansen

War is not exceptional; peace is. Worry is not exceptional; trust is. Decay is not exceptional; restoration is. Anger is not exceptional; gratitude is. Selfishness is not exceptional; sacrifice is. Defensiveness is not exceptional; love is. And judgmentalism is not exceptional . . . But grace is.

I have a long history of being shy . . . and selfish. I’m getting better.

Anger and rest are always at odds. You can’t have both at once.

Trust Him. Rest. Quit thinking it’s up to you to police people and that God needs you to “take a stand.” God “needs” nothing. Quit trying to parent the whole world. Quit offering advice when exactly zero people asked for it. Quit being shocked when people don’t share your morality. Quit serving as judge and jury, in your own mind, of that person who just cut you off in traffic. Quit thinking you need to “discern” what others’ motives are. And quit rehearsing in your mind what that other person did to you.

We don’t get angry when we’ve just been let off the hook.

I suspect our sense of entitlement to anger is directly proportional to our perception of our own relative innocence. So when that illusion is blown up, irrevocably, publicly, in our faces, it’s very, very difficult to be angry with someone else.

If you think you can judge others, you are wrong. When you judge them, you are really judging yourself guilty, because you do the same things they do. God judges those who do wrong things, and we know that his judging is right. You judge those who do wrong, but you do wrong yourselves. Do you think you will be able to escape the judgment of God? (Rom. 2:1–3 NCV)

If I get to determine whether my anger is righteous or not, I’m in trouble. So are you. The reason: we can’t trust ourselves. “Trust in yourself” sounds like a perfectly normal thing to do. Problem is, for the believer, it isn’t biblical at all. We are deceptive to the core: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer. 17:9 ESV) Or try this: There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (Prov. 14:12 ESV)

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and depart from evil. (Prov. 3:5–7 NKJV)

Evangelicals adopted an isolationist mindset for much of the 20th century. Non-Christians, the thinking went, carried sin like a virus, and the point of following Jesus was to remain as pure as possible. Christians established their own communities, educational institutions and music festivals, separate from the rest of the world.

But the kingdom of God is not on defense.

Jesus is sending His followers out to love others, and they can go anywhere, even through the gates of hell, to do it.

My goal with relationships is no longer to try to change people. It’s to introduce people to a God who is already reaching toward them, right where they are. This changes everything. It means everyone is welcome, and not just theoretically, but really: everyone—no matter what their political or religious beliefs—is welcome in my home, at my table.

I’m not responsible for changing people’s lives. I’m responsible for faithfully loving them.

Don’t condemn the culture; redeem it.

I don’t know where people really stand with God.

I don’t know, ultimately, where people stand. I know what they need and what I need. I know we need Jesus. That’s it. Period. Everybody. All of us. All the time. More of Him. That’s all I know.

the kingdom of God is so shockingly opposite the way the rest of the world works that I need constant reminding of what it looks like and how good it is.

Anger and action are two very different things, and confusing the two actually hurts our efforts to set things right.

we’re positively in love with “taking stands” that cost us absolutely nothing.

The myth of “righteous anger” actually impedes the taking of action, because it lets us congratulate ourselves for a feeling, rather than for doing something.

in order for us to justify our right to anger, we have to confuse ourselves with God.

The early church dealt with injustice daily and was aware of widespread injustices affecting others. So why were they not told to get angry about it, if human anger toward true injustice is actually righteous? Why isn’t righteous anger ever listed among the things that a Spirit-filled life will bring us? If it’s righteous, why is it not akin to the “fruit of the Spirit,” like love, joy, peace, and gentleness? Why is anger in Scripture so consistently lumped in the other lists with things like, say, slander and malice, with no exclusions for the “righteous” variety? (See, for example, Colossians 3:8.)

Those stories aren’t how-to templates for our lives; they’re stories that point us, ultimately, to the goodness of God.

“You must not harbor anger,” I admonished myself. “You must be willing to suffer the anger of the opponent, and yet not return anger.”

“Jesus will not accept the common distinction between righteous indignation and unjustifiable anger. The disciple must be entirely innocent of anger, because anger is an offence against both God and his neighbour.”

Action need not be born of anger, and I thank God there are those who will act to defend the innocent simply because it’s the right thing to do.

My anger isn’t a sign of trust; it’s the very opposite. I’m worried someone’s going to get away with something, like God’s not noticing and it’s all up to me.

I trust in God’s justice and release anger and a desire for personal vengeance. It does not mean that I minimize or mitigate or excuse what he has done. It does not mean that I pursue justice on earth any less zealously. It simply means that I release personal vengeance against him, and I trust God’s justice, whether he chooses to mete that out purely, eternally, or both in heaven and on earth.

Naturally, if you love people, you’re going to worry about them. But do you know where constant worry comes from? It’s rooted in an arrogance that assumes, I know the way my life has to go, and God’s not getting it right. Real humility means to relax. Real humility means to laugh at yourself. Real humility means to be self-critical.

Hell . . . begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it. . . . Ye can repent, and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever, like a machine.

Children are truly gifts from the Lord. But still it remains: God wants us to want Him for Him, not His gifts.

We say “I trust Jesus,” or “Trust in the Lord, and . . .” and all that stuff. But here’s where the words actually mean something: What if . . . the worst happens? Do you still trust Him? Do you believe it’s really the end of the story if it does happen? Isn’t that the point of trust itself, that you’re stepping into mystery?

God walked among us. Even though we completely messed everything up, He took on flesh, lowering Himself to be with us, and walked in our world. He let us mock, bruise, and beat Him, and deliberately subject Him to an utterly humiliating capital punishment on display for all. He let us do that. He wanted to be with us that bad. And there He is, encountering His friends for the first time, and while they’re coming back toward shore in their boat, God Himself is making breakfast.

In fact, if this is true, that very love toward one another would be an accurate test of whether we really believed all this. If we loved others with a newfound patience, a refusal to take offense, and a lack of self-seeking, it would be evidence that all this is real.

I tell that story with some trepidation because I’m kind of a good guy in my own story. I’m hoping, though, that you realize this spate of others-centeredness is very out of character for me—out of my previous character, anyway. But it made me think, Maybe I’m growing up. Maybe that’s what obedience looks like.

When she looked at him, she saw the man she knew he was and who he could be.

God doesn’t love all the things we do. He loves us in spite of the things we do.

So what does all this mean? Those who are not Jews were not trying to make themselves right with God, but they were made right with God because of their faith. The people of Israel tried to follow a law to make themselves right with God. But they did not succeed, because they tried to make themselves right by the things they did instead of trusting in God to make them right. They stumbled over the stone that causes people to stumble. (Rom. 9:30–32 NCV)

More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.3

We forgive because we’ve been forgiven.

“There is nothing that can be done with anger that cannot be done better without it.”

We have to constantly be grateful for our own forgiveness. We start the day with it. We live the day with it. We end the day with it. It defines us.